Monday, March 1, 2010

I had the pleasure of directing Jon Marans' play "Old Wicked Songs" about 12 years ago at Laguna Playhouse, which is how I met him. We became good friends, and I was able to orchestrate a summer-long residency for him at the theatre in 2002, when I directed the World Premiere of his play "Jumping for Joy." He spent the summer working on "Strange and Separate People," and we held a reading of it.

Though he's written a number of plays, he's not had the kind of attention he received in 1997 when "Rent" edged out "Old Wicked Songs" for that year's Pulitzer Prize. "OWS" has been produced in many languages all over the world.

But now Jon has a bona fide hit: "The Temperamentals." Today's New York Times carries a front page arts section review that's about as good as anyone ever gets from critic Ben Brantley.

About Me

Rick Stein is Executive Director of Arts Orange County, the leader in building appreciation, participation and support for the arts and arts education throughout Orange County.
ArtsOC operates SparkOC.com, Orange County's most comprehensive online arts & cultural events resource and produces the annual Imagination Celebration and Orange County Arts Awards. ArtsOC also serves as the official local arts agency of the County of Orange and state-local partner of the California Arts Council.